On the fourth or the fifth day of our travel through the desert we finally
entered the outskirts of the Marching Mountains – the wide range of craggy hills,
abundant with giant rocks, treacherous landslides, and dusty grey rivers of
petrified lava-streams formed in the wake of the ancient volcano eruptions.
It brought little relief, since our track through the fields of razor-sharp
lava fragments was even harsher then the journey through the ever-shifting sands
of the great desert, and there was yet no sight of water or lush green vegetation
that usually sprouted along the banks of mountain streams. Our water supply
was running short, and most of our fluids now came from the sticky juice of
some local cacti that Kessen procured along the way on the northern, shaded
slopes of the dunes, and that had to be split open with a jambiya knife
after carefully removing the needles.

The twins have assured me many times that they knew their way in and out of
the ‘Marchies’ – a quaint local name for the impressive range of giant rusty-red
peaks that now filled most of the view to the right from the narrow trail. But
so far their knowledge of the surroundings has failed to bring us to any hidden
spring or waterhole. Luckily, their desert-breed pony proved to be a hardy beast.
Even burdened with all the treasure and restricted to the diet of cacti and
dry desert plants, Henna trotted ahead without giving any sign of tiredness
or discontent with her fate, (the statement which I would not dare to apply
to myself with the same certainty).

The nights were growing longer, and even as I sighed in relief at the retreat
of the suffocating heat of the desert, the new problem had presented itself
on the first night of our stay in the mountains. It was too damn cold, and after
spending almost half a year in the dry and hot climate of the Calim desert,
I suddenly rediscovered the inconveniences of the midnight chill spells. Kessen’s
ill-fitted leathers were poor protection against the cold, and besides, they
chafed and strained in too many places. After ransacking through all of the
saddlebags contents, I finally found his old, worn aba that Mirriam had put
in there obeying the pack-rat instinct that almost any female acquires when
preparing to travel on distances longer than two miles. It was of dark indigo
wool, too short for my height, and threadbare on the elbows. But it was such
a respite to put on after the snug and hard leather jacket and breeches that
I almost shivered from pleasure. Still, it did not make me feel any warmer,
and I had to accept a vest of uncured goatskin, covered with long black and
white fur, a pair of pants of the same material, and a shapeless felt hat –
the only clothes for colder mountain weather that the twins carried in their
bottomless saddlebags.

According to Omwo, I now cut a fine figure of a traveling hedge-wizard, with
an acute habilitation disorder, but I preferred this new shabby exterior to
the posh green and plum silks of the water elemental’s gift. It was practical
and unremarkable. After careful examination of my choices of footwear, which
were few, and by and large deplorable, I had to accept the pair of green elven
boots, despite all the controversial emotions that they stirred in my mind.
Nonetheless, it was a better option than developing bleeding calluses from Kessen’s
oversized sandals, and definitely a much warmer one. Sometimes bodily discomfort
is a stronger argument than vague aversion. Not that I had anything in particular
against elven clothes and goods... Yet, the longer I pondered over the certain
aspects of Aluril’s story, and my supposed role in it, the more uneasy it made
me feel. Add to that Omwo’s endless anecdotes about elves, and their fastidious
ways, and you will get the idea.

Overall, the relationship between me, and the little bastard had settled into
a sort of uneasy truce, hiding our mutual dislike. It is hard to intensely hate
someone with whom you have to share the everyday business of setting and clearing
the camp, collecting firewood, and thousands of other small chores that are
associated with traveling in the wild in the company of two human youngsters,
a halfling, and a pony. Truly told, the twins cheerfully accepted the lion share
of the tedious work. Their sunny disposition set the mood of our journey; and
although their characters were subtly different, with Mirriam being the brains
and the willpower of the tandem, (and Kessen its unyielding, evasive obstinacy),
they worked exceptionally well as a pair. That made the small disasters like
a handful of sand in every dish we ate, or a punctured water skin that lost
all of its contents and deprived us of water, much easier to tolerate. Since
Omwo permanently took over the duties related to cooking, and the twins were
ultimately superior in setting the tent, starting fire, and packing the supplies,
I was left with a very few simple tasks around the campsite, and most of the
time someone would relieve me even of these smaller chores, upon noticing me
unsuccessfully trying to figure out the art of splitting wood or cleaning dishes
without using magic.

That gave me plenty of time to work on the Naga’s scrolls, carefully deciphering
the spells, and transferring them into my slightly bedraggled spellbook. Mirriam
provided me with ink and a stylus, and I spent my free time filling the pages
of Lasarus’s gift with line after line of dense-packed letters, switching from
common to elven every now and then, and re-inventing my own symbols and pictograms,
that surfaced in my mind with the ridiculous ease of a language, invented and
formalized in early childhood for a once favorite but now well-forgotten game.
There were at least a dozen new spells that I learned. Not all of them could
I recognize at first glance, and most of the ones I did, required strange and
exotic components that were hard to come by in the middle of a desert. Thus,
my studies were limited to purely theoretical musings on the nature of the incantations,
and associated finger signs.

Perhaps, that was for the better, since practicing magic in an open field with
a group of weary companions looking over your shoulder at every step was not
exactly my favorite kind of a game, and after the incident with the soup bowl
they were wary of me trying the simplest of my spells. I grew tense and irritated,
which provoked a series of mocking remarks from Omwo, and could have resulted
in further explosions, if not for the extreme conditions of our march, and the
fact that after days of walking, and evenings spent bent over my notes, I barely
had any energy left for anything but a few words with my companions, a quick
bite of whatever Omwo was cooking at the moment, and a quick descent into dreamless
oblivion, that thankfully found me every night after I rolled myself into my
rough woolen blanket, and closed my weary eyes.

It was an immense relief, after month after month of the bloody and terrifying
nightmares. I shuddered at the very thought of waking up in the dark, screaming
and gibbering like a lunatic, or worse crying and pleading for mercy – the ritual
that repeated itself with maddening persistency on every night that I had spent
in Chyil’s care in Amkethran. It would have been extremely unpleasant experience
for anybody traveling in my company, not to mention what it would have done
to my sense of self-respect if it happened in front of the girl. I wondered
yet again, if Aluril knew what she was doing when she rid me of my horrid dreams,
or if her surprise at my condition was genuine. Someone was surely playing games
with me, and it was a pattern of such tremendous complexity, and scale that
my mind refused to comprehend the implications. I was not pleased to be used
as a pawn on the divine chessboard, and something told me it was not the first
time that I was used in this manner.

These uneasy speculations occupied most of my daytime hours spent on the march
across the desert, and later along the edge of the mountains. We were slowly
making our way north-eastwards, in the general direction of the river Agis,
and the fringe of the great wooden massive marked on Mirriam’s yellowed map
as the Forest of Mir. Our journey would lead us across the Agis, away from Calimshan
and into Tethyr, and further north to the second great Tethyran waterway - the
river Ith, to end in Darromar, the new capital of that unsettled country, with
its fledgling new monarchy. Zaranda Rhindaun, the new queen of Tethyr moved
the royal court to Darromar (formerly known as Ithmong) shortly after establishing
herself on the throne, and marrying the last scion of the old ruling dynasty.
The new monarch was renowned for her libertarian views and racial tolerance
that resulted in ending of the persecution of Tethyran ethnic minorities, including
the wild elven tribes. Little else was known about her to my companions, except
for the general feeling of stability and improved security that was suddenly
created in Tethyr under her rulership after a decade of devastating civil wars,
and minor noble rebellions. In Darromar I intended to find a caravan heading
north, or procure some other means of traveling to my final destination, and
the twins would take a barge to Myratma or travel by land to Zazesspur, as they
were still undecided about the next leg of their journey.

All the information about Tethyr, and its geography was bestowed on me by brother
and sister during our many conversations around the campfire. Having spent the
last five years of his life under the domination spell, Omwo knew little of
the current political situation, although he remembered that some of Zaureen’s
trusted agents were sent to Darromar on a regular basis to purchase expensive
goods and delicacies. He admitted to certain familiarity with the city from
his earlier visits, but since we were going to part ways with the halfling upon
reaching Fort Qian, that was of little importance. As for me, I flatly refused
to discuss the details of my own quest, stating only that my main objective
was to reach the elven city of Evereska before the Winter Solstice – the fact
that I once let slip from my tongue at the moment of weakness, and that I now
deeply regretted, since Mirriam had made it into a personal quest to extricate
the rest of the relevant information out of me, using all possible and impossible
tactics, such as sweet talk, coercion, and simple blackmail. She had found a
staunch ally in Omwo’s persona, as he had also acquired a passionate interest
in my past, and haunted me with seemingly innocent questions and verbal traps,
cunningly inserted in between his stream of annoying jokes and half-hidden insults.

The girl had the gall to confront me one evening, stating that ‘holding it
all inside’ was not doing anything good to my mental health, and that I would
benefit from an open discussion of my ‘personal problems’. I only looked at
her, trying to silently convey the message of utter inappropriateness of such
an invasion of my privacy, and turned back to my spellbook. Luckily, that was
sufficient to put her off the idea, at least temporarily. The looks she gave
me afterwards were a strange mixture of hurt and anxiety. I wondered if I was
indeed that intimidating, or it was her girlish sensitivity. In any case, it
did not interest me enough to try and find the root cause of her distress, although
I could guess some of the obvious reasons, as I simply refused to acknowledge
any change in our relationship after they pulled us out of the gorge. The kiss
was a mistake on my part, and I decided to pretend that it had never happened,
much to Mirriam’s disappointment. By then, I was firmly convinced that keeping
my distance from the girl was in my (and hers) best interest, and my original
notion of encouraging and exploiting her affection was replaced with a strong
aversion to any complications that may arise from such an affair. Unfortunately,
my deliberate coldness did not to seem to have much of an effect on her, and
she continued to behave like I owed her some sort of an explanation. After a
few days of that hassle, I simply refused to maintain any sort of a conversation
with anyone but Kessen, who seemed to be the only sensible person in the party,
although his fixation on personal wealth, and a strange addiction to putting
himself in dangerous situations while obtaining it, often made me shrug in distaste.

Such was the state of our affairs, and the general mood inside our little group,
when the harsh and miserably cold routine of our journey through the spurs of
the Marching Mountains was suddenly interrupted by a rather unusual encounter
that led to the whole series of events to be described further in this journal.

* * * * *

On one gray and chilly afternoon, when the damp, billowing masses
of fog appeared to pour forth from the sparse growth of mountain firs with
the stubborn persistency of runaway milk, determined to drown the whole world
in its white, sticky wetness, we came across a shallow but murderously cold
stream. It ran at the bottom of a gorge into which our trail dived from the
side of a smaller mound before ascending serpent-like on the slope of its
taller neighbor, which in its turn could be called a medium-sized mountain
without undue exaggeration. It was a pleasant enough discovery, since I was
beginning to worry that the mountain dew that Mirriam collected every morning
in bowls and pots left outside the tent especially for this purpose, was going
to be our only source of water for the next week. We stopped and camped on
the bank of the small river, making a decision to spend the rest of the day
and the upcoming night there, to satisfy everybody’s need for personal hygiene
and replenish our water supply.

I only had time to drop my pack on the beach covered with flat smooth pebbles
of the same reddish tint as the mountains around us, and strewn with hulks of
driftwood, when the argument erupted. After the twins relieved her of the saddlebags
with the treasure, the pony simply waded into the rushing stream that barely
reached to her round belly in its deepest level, and drunk her full until Kessen
chased her out on Mirriam’s insistence. The girl claimed such gluttony was not
good for the little beast’s health, but I suspected it was simply a way to express
her general displeasure with us, and to show the degree of her control over
the male populace of the group. Astoundingly, we had all accepted her dictatorship
over the course of the past two days, since it was much easier to agree with
everything she said than to endure an avalanche of sarcastic commentary, and
practical advice that inevitably followed each expression of mild disagreement.

Her usual light and humorous way of talking was replaced with stern reprimands,
followed by prolonged silences. Since Mirri was particularly vicious on Kes,
I wondered if it was in the nature of women to torment their male relatives
as a payback for an affront from another man, or if she was mad at her brother
because he was the only one in the group, with whom I was still on good terms.
The thought was born as a reflection of one of the vague memories, which often
flickered in my mind when I was too tired to catch and analyze them. Kessen
winked at me after each particularly vicious attack from his disgruntled twin,
and it made me feel uncomfortable, since he was suffering from the consequences
of my digression. It was their family matter of course, and as an outsider I
had no business interfering with the course of their relationship. But what
puzzled me most was the fact that in the rare moments when she deigned to address
me at all, Mirriam was unnaturally and exaggeratedly polite. I once caught her
looking wistfully at her bruised forearm – the dark blue imprints of my fingers
had faded over the course of few days, and now were hardly visible. But the
look on her face was that of regret rather than satisfaction with the fact,
and when she noticed me watching she blushed profusely, and quickly covered
her arm. All of this was rather mysterious and slightly irritating.

Thus, when I heard them start another loud and pointless squabble over Henna’s
potential sickness, I quickly grabbed one of Kessen’s spare tunics, and mumbling
my apologies retreated upstream to find a quiet place to bathe. To my greatest
displeasure, Omwo chose to follow my example, and avoid the family quarrel.
We found a secluded spot in a segment of the stream that was somewhat slower
and deeper then the rest of the river, about half a mile from our original site.
I soon decided that even here, the water was too cold, and the current too swift
for anything more than a quick wash. Besides, I had no desire to strip naked
in front of the leering actor, since his sense of humor was particularly vicious
when it came to my looks, which he found hilariously effeminate, and too pretty
for a male.

I had no idea if all the elves were supposed to look like that, but his comments
bothered me somewhat. There were very few things about myself of which I was
sure at that point, and he did not make me feel any better by questioning my
masculinity. I suppose, the absence of bodily hair was an affront to nature
in the eyes of a halfling. Omwo himself boasted a tangled mass of black curly
fuzz in all the appropriate places (except for his head that was naked as my
knee), including his big flat feet, and chubby toes. I was never very good at
distinguishing between halflings (or hin-people as they call themselves), and
since the bothersome fool never talked about his own origins, I had only a vague
idea of his tribal and social standing, although he once mentioned that his
family owned a potato farm somewhere in the Western Heartlands. Supposedly,
he was of the Lightfoot tribe, but whether the members of his family evicted
him for some nasty trick or he left of his own volition to become an actor in
a troupe of vagabonds of similar nature, remained a mystery, and one I was not
particularly interested in solving.

I removed my robe and tunic and waded knee-deep into the stream, plunging my
sweaty head into abysmally cold but clean water, and clutching the slippery
chunk of crude grey soap borrowed from Mirriam’s personal reserve. The water
was so clean and soft that even that inferior substance produced the desired
effect – my head was soon swathed in white lather that stung my eyes and completely
obscured my vision. Nearby I could hear Omwo puffing and splashing like a beaver,
or some other water-bound creature. When I emerged from the second dip, dripping
water and soap bubbles, the first thing I heard was a rather surprised baaing
and clanking, and my smarting eyes beheld a remarkable sight: the other shore
of the small river was crowded with a herd of piebald mountain goats of various
sizes. The animals looked agitated, as they swarmed around the leader of the
herd - a tall, mature male goat that in addition to his remarkably curvy and
sharp-looking horns and a beard bore a saddle, a bridle, and most importantly
– a rider.

“By Urogalan’s finest spade!” Omwo’s voice screeched from somewhere behind
me. “What a fine collection of horns and hooves you have over there, grandfather!
Care to cross over and share the news and a cup with a lost soul? Don’t mind
the elf – he is a bit retarded as all of them blasted tree-huggers. Indulge
the curiosity of a traveling jester - I have not met a kinsman in near half
a decade!”

I slowly wiped away the remains of the soap, squinting at the scrawny figure
on top of the lead he-goat. Indeed, the person that I at first took for a human
child was a bedraggled elderly halfling dressed in furs and old rugs, who looked
at us suspiciously, cocking his near-bald head to one side. The remaining white,
fluffy locks stood around the pink central spot on his head like a small nimbus,
or a crown of a half-blown dandelion. I imagine, I presented a wet and miserably
cold but harmless image, for the goat-herder grinned at me and turned to my
cheery companion.

“So, you be the trickster then, sonny?” The old hin said in a surprisingly
shrill voice, urging his goat to enter the stream. “Can you juggle, and do tricks
with cards, and them balls? Poggo, Droggo, come here boys!” He waved a skinny
hand and a pair of halfling youngsters mounted on the same black-and-white beasts,
and dressed in similar goat-hide pants and coats, galloped from the bushes behind
him. “I have not seen a jongleur in these parts, ever since I was a wee one
meself,” the halfling continued. “It is always nice to have one come to the
hold. And an elf be your partner then? I have heard them long-ears be good singers!”

After the old codger crossed over to our side, leaving the baaing multitude
of goats under his grandsons’ supervision, the halflings quickly switched to
a chirruping, sharply accentuated hin-tongue, as our new acquaintance asked
Omwo about the details of our journey, and at the same time yelled his directions
back to the younger generation (at least that was my best guess on the topic
of their discussion). The actor joined in the fun, shouting encouragements and
making jokes in the same gibbering lingo. I scowled and walked back to the shore,
collecting my belongings, and ignoring the hins that were now exchanging questions
and equally inane answers with each other across the stream. It looked like
we would not have a quiet, restful afternoon after all. Indeed, the goat-herder,
whose name was (surprise, surprise) Gonkfloron Longhorn, or simply Gonk, turned
out to be a talkative fellow. When Omwo brought him, his two grandsons, and
his hairy, bearded charges back to our camp I had already warned the twins,
who upon my return were already setting up the tent and starting the fire. Their
efforts were in vain, for it was soon decided that we would find better accommodations
and nourishment in the nearby halfling village, or hin hold that according
to our swarm of halfling locusts was a few hours ride away from the river.

Whether the halflings underestimated the travel time, or they deliberately
picked up the goat trails that led further and further into the mountains, looping
and swinging across the scraggy slopes bristling with firs, spruces and mountain
pine, I did not know, but it was already dark, and quickly getting darker yet,
when we finally reached the almost vertical wall that rose high into the sky
from the bottom of another small canyon that was completely indistinguishable
from the multitude of its brethren, that we had passed on our way to the elusive
halfling village. Gonk, who was riding in front with Omwo at his side reined
his mount, and yelped, making the obstinate ancient goat rise on hind legs and
make a full turn around with an agility, amazing in the animal that old. He
then heeled the beast making us jump out of his way on the narrow trail, and
disappeared in the darkness beyond. I could hear his shrill voice discussing
something with the two young ones, as they collected their herd and led it deeper
into the canyon.

“They will pull us up the wall in a basket,” Omwo explained cheerfully, “there
is no other way into the hold from here. They are cautious – you see. These
mountains are teeming with rogue ogre and giant clans. Not to mention the rumors
of drow settlements, and the recent Bhaalspawn wars. It caused quite a commotion
in the whole area. He said we were lucky not to run into anything nastier than
the hin tribe. There are all sorts of things on the move through the Marching
Mountains right now.”

“The saddlebags are too heavy,” Kessen nodded warily, “and there is no way
I am leaving the horse here – not with all the gold in her packs!”

I only shrugged, remembering the imprint of the giant foot that I spotted at
the bottom of the small gorge that we had to cross on our way here. It looked
... remarkable. I had absolutely no desire to meet the owner of that foot, not
to mention that my head was groggy from the day-long march, and the prospect
of setting a camp on the narrow trail at the bottom of the cliff did not sound
attractive, especially because there was a warm bed available three hundred
feet away (regretfully, that distance would have to be measured upwards rather
than sidewise).

By what means Gonk delivered his message to the villagers was a mystery (later
on, I learned that there was an alternative way into the hold, and that one
of the youngsters was sent ahead with instructions), but in a few moments we
heard a distinctive sound of creaking, and a sturdy wicker basket, big enough
to accommodate half a dozen halflings or a pair of humans, was lowered down
the wall on a sturdy arrangement of ropes, and plopped on the rocky ground in
front of us. Two brawny halflings, dresses in familiar goat-hides, but equipped
with short spears and slings jumped out, and after a brief interview with Omwo,
who served as a translator, indicated that we should pick the first persons
to travel up the wall, and that the horse should stay behind and would be taken
to the goat corral by Gonk and his remaining grandson. Obviously, the hin’s
livestock was not hauled up and down the cliff every night but spent most of
the warm season in a fenced enclosure at the bottom of the gorge, and in case
of sudden danger the goats were quickly secured in a specially prepared hideout
in the network of natural caves around the area.

“And neither am I!” his sister added in a voice ringing with indignation.

“Oh come on, kids, we cannot possibly stay here all night,” Omwo squeaked in
agitation, “Jonny, don’t just stand here with your arms folded like you are
some kind of a freak – say something!”

“Frankly speaking, they are right,” I answered carefully, trying to sort through
all possible ways of resolving the crisis. “I don’t think we should leave the
horse here either.”

“And I thought that you had some sense in that pointy-eared head of yours,
elf-boy! You are the worst of the three. Yondalla, mother of all, you surely
depleted me of my brains on the day when I agreed to travel in the company of
the obstinate children, human and elven!” he turned back to the halflings, and
burst into an energetic speech in hin-tongue accompanied with intense gesticulation
and striking the air with his little fists. Mirriam gave me a thankful look.

After a brief but passionate argument it became clear that nothing would budge
our resolution. I had to take the twins’ side, since there was no warranty that
the halflings would not take a peek into Henna’s saddlebags at first occasion.
And although I was mostly indifferent to the fact that the amount of wealth
that we now carried with us was enough to buy a hundred villages like Amkethran
with all their inhabitants, I still needed the money to pay for the means of
my future travels, and to procure the information about Evereska. Not a single
one of Easamon’s maps contained any hints on the mysterious elven city’s location,
and after a few futile attempts to find anything relevant in the smuggler’s
personal notes at the bottom of one of the atlases, I gave up the idea. (The
notes seemed to be related to his journey between the Amnian city of Athkatla
and some obscure archipelago in the Sea of Swords.) I had no doubts about my
ability to earn a living as a wandering scribe or a wizard, but the sum required
to bribe some royal official or a merchant to obtain a map with Evereska’s location,
was probably beyond my means without my share of the treasure.

The negotiations entered a deadlock that seemed to be unbreakable, until the
halflings suddenly agreed to let Kessen stay with the pony and lodge with Gonk
in his shed, while the rest of us would travel upwards to the hin hold. It was
not a perfect solution but still better than spending the night in this inhospitable
ravine. Kes was probably safe enough with the halflings, and although Mirri
tried to suggest that all of us should stay down here, it was quite obvious
to me that Omwo’s promised performance for the hin children was the main reason
behind our invitation to the village. As for me, I had my own agenda, mainly
procuring at least some of the ingredients that were essential for my new collection
of spells. Even such a small holding should have a shaman or a hedge-wizard
of sorts, and I was hopeful that he or she would provide me with much needed
magical supplies. We had other plans as well, the ones that we had discussed
on out way here, and these required securing villagers’ good will, and employing
some diplomatic skills. I hoped that I and Omwo would be able to pull it off,
even if it meant cooperating with the annoying jester, the very thought of which
made me cringe in distaste.

When that long and tiresome discussion was finished, Kessen and the horse were
led away by one of the guards, and the rest of the group was offered a passage
up the wall. To my utter surprise, Omwo offered to wait for the second haul,
stating the need for a translator and negotiator in case of possible complications,
and since I was reluctant to send the girl up there alone, it was our turn.
As I stepped into the creaking basket, offering Mirriam my hand, I wondered
once again by what inexplicable means did I end up in such an odd place with
a band of most unlikely companions (a likely expression basket case immediately
sprang to my mind and made me chuckle nervously, despite my best intention to
stay calm). But since the gods ignored to my silent inquiry, all I could do
was to sit still and let the girl clutch at me at each precarious swing and
bump of the improvised elevator. Mirriam was shy at first, and honestly tried
to keep her distance, but it was virtually impossible in these narrow, swaying
quarters. I had a feeling that she was not seriously displeased when at the
final stage of our trip, after a particularly violent jolt of the container,
we ended up in a tangle of limbs and clothes on the bottom of that peculiar
accommodation. She was tense and warm, and her heart was beating against my
chest with the speed and tenacity of the overwound clockwork. Then the basket
gave a final jerk, and stopped as suddenly as it started. Our journey was over,
and I carefully disentangled myself from Mirri’s timid embrace, and helped her
out without saying a word.

After I stretched my insensate limbs and adjusted my robes, finally straightening
to my full height from the crouched position inside the blasted container, I
finally had a chance to look around. It was dark and cold at the top of the
small plateau, and the chilly light of autumn stars poured reluctantly on the
miserable collection of stone sheds, and strange round mounds that proved to
be the entrances into the hin underground burrows. Someone coughed behind my
back. I swirled around, fully expecting some sort of a trap, but it was only
a small group of curious and slightly nervous halflings with brightly lit torches
that was waiting for us by the odd construction of wooden wheels and pulleys
that operated the lift.